Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Connolly made interesting points earlier about the use of the Irish language. I definitely support use of the Irish language in terms of naming State bodies and so on. It is an important way of popularising and bringing the language into normal use but I cannot help but be a little bit cynical when it comes to this naming. I wonder if the name is being changed from "Irish Water" to "Uisce Éireann" because of the deep unpopularity of Irish Water, the dislike that many ordinary people hold for it as an institution and its connection to the project of the commodification of water and potential privatisation of water.

The context of this debate is the mass social movement that happened in 2014, 2015, and 2016.

It prevented the agenda of the political establishment in this country and the capitalist elite in the European Union, which was to drive through commodification and privatisation of our water. The mass movement of hundreds of thousands of people protesting, the 73% of people refusing to pay and the community organisation at an incredible scale, including blocking water meters, defeated a serious Government agenda of commodification leading to privatisation.

At the time, those of us who opposed the water charges were ridiculed for suggesting that such a process of water charges may lead to privatisation. It is very clear to anyone who analyses the various troika programmes that were imposed that where there were no charges they were imposed, such as in Ireland with the agreement of the then Government, and where there were charges privatisation was imposed as, for example, in Greece. It was the clear agenda and it remains a clear agenda. The political establishment in this country cannot go out and speak about its support for water charges. Do we really think the wholehearted support it previously had for water charges has gone away and that it really changed its mind because of the mass movement? No. It was defeated and forced back.

We, together in the mass movement, stopped the process of commodification and privatisation through the front door for now. We have to remain vigilant about the process happening through the back door. Officially we are meant to be getting bills for excess usage of water charges next year. They were originally meant to start in 2019. As a result of the mass opposition and the absence of water meters in half of the homes in the State, the Government has put it off again and again. I presume, because of pressure, particularly in the context of the cost-of-living crisis, the Government will be forced to put it off again. This is meant to be coming and it is a back door towards commodification and full charges.

The other most likely route to effective privatisation is by the back door. This is already happening in terms of how Irish Water operates. There is a lot of outsourcing to private companies. There is not only outsourcing whereby a company is paid to do particular work but also outsourcing in the form of various design, build and operate contracts. This effectively means that large parts of our water infrastructure are run on a for-profit basis. They are handed over to private companies from their very inception. They design, build and operate them and effectively they are run on a for-profit basis. We may well see this extended more and more this until very little of our water is held in effective public ownership. If not, there may be a threat of a future economic crisis when the Government will state it will sell off Irish Water directly.

One of the things that, in a sense, the water movement won was a promise that we would have a referendum to enshrine the public ownership of water in the Constitution. This is important for everybody in the country who drinks and uses water, which is literally everybody. It is particularly important for the 3,000 workers who are expected, from 1 January next year, to transfer from working for local authorities and the State to working for Irish Water. They are extremely concerned that they are being transferred to a semi-State company which, at a future point in time, directly or indirectly, could become a private company and that they would lose all of their rights. It is not a small matter.

The Minister of State is nodding. I presume he personally agrees with the idea of a referendum to ensure water is in public ownership. It is a matter of very clear public record that the Government has dragged its feet on this. That is the case with this Government and the previous Government. I sat in multiple committee meetings dealing with the Bill tabled by Deputy Joan Collins. Six years ago, she introduced a Bill that stated we should have a referendum to put public ownership of water into our Constitution. We were treated to all sorts of arcane legal arguments that were trotted out just to avoid a referendum. There was no meaningful proposal of wording. We were just told this or that was a problem.

Six months ago, we had a promise from the Minister with responsibility for housing that there would be a referendum this year or early next year. As Deputy Barry pointed out, I asked the Taoiseach about this yesterday. The answer I got was far from reassuring. The Taoiseach told me there is no reason for workers to be concerned but he did not give any reassurance whatsoever on the content of the referendum or the timeline for it. When I pushed for an answer on when it would happen I was told we would get a timeline when the Government was ready for it. The Taoiseach said we could not have had a referendum, or even prepare for one, over recent years because of Covid. He said:

Deputy Paul Murphy should acknowledge that significant progress has been made in recent years in cementing the public ownership dimension of Irish Water in terms of the State structure that has been introduced. There is no question about that.

I do not agree there is no question about it when we do not have a referendum. We did not get any indication of a timeline. This is an essential, core issue for the 3,000 workers as well as everybody in the country who is concerned about water.

What the Taoiseach indicated about the wording of the referendum was concerning. The programme for Government is also concerning. There is a general reference to water and our natural resources. The Taoiseach stated:

The fundamental issue around the referendum on water is control of a natural resource, besides the mechanisms by which it is managed. Be it an agency or local authorities, that is a matter for ongoing debate. It is State-owned and the State is the shareholder... The Minister has committed to a referendum on it. It is a referendum that will deal with the broader issue of ownership of water.

I have an idea of what he is getting at, which is that we will not put in the Constitution that we will not privatise Irish Water. What we will put in the Constitution is some type of general idea that the ownership of water in general is held in the context of the State but not that we cannot sell the water coming through our taps for profit and not that it cannot be privatised. The referendum the Government will deliver, based on what was said yesterday, will not meet expectations and hopes and what is necessary to satisfy the demands of the water workers.

I commend the local authority workers for fighting for their rights and the rights of every person in this country who wants to see publicly owned and properly provided water. They have organised a series of protests throughout the State. We do not have any Fine Gael Deputies present but they got a rude awakening at their think-in where the issue of water was present. People were marching outside demanding a referendum. It is absolutely reasonable for the workers to say they want a ballot. Effectively, they will be transferred. They do not feel they have much choice. They are being faced with not much of a choice given what will happen to them in 2026 if they stay in the local authorities. They state they need to have a ballot on this and a democratic decision within the union as to whether they will accept it. This is a very reasonable position for them to adopt. Previously they were informed that no such agreement would happen without their democratic consent to it. They are absolutely right to be campaigning, pushing and demanding ballots in their unions on whether they accept the deal.

If the situation does not change and we do not have a guarantee of a timeline for a meaningful referendum about public ownership of water in a real sense, and if the workers are not satisfied on the various issues they are raising about conditions and pensions, then on 1 January there is likely to be a significant problem. The workers will be absolutely justified in engaging in industrial action to state they will not be transferred to Irish Water. It is very easy for the Government to solve this. I am putting it on notice, and the workers have put it on notice through their actions, that the Government can avoid all of these things by going for a meaningful referendum and engaging with the workers and listening to them. If it does not, it will be faced with the active opposition of these local authority workers who will have very broad public support. The public gets this. It is deeply in the public sentiment that water must not be commodified or privatised and that we must enshrine that in our Constitution. We want a guarantee that what happened with bin services will not happen.

Commodification led to privatisation, to massive attacks on workers' rights and a decline in services for people. That must not happen to something as essential as water. I hope that we will get meaningful responses on the referendum and engagement with the workers.

See this speech in context